2010 Syrah Reva Alban Estate

John and Lorraine Alban's winery is stripped down to the barest essentials. There is no fancy tasting room, just a makeshift table and a couple of chairs in the middle of fermentation tanks and barrels. Offers still go out to the mailing list via snail mail. It's great to know all of the emphasis is where it matters - the vineyards and wines. The 2010 Pandora and Reva are the highlights in this range of show stopping wines. John and Lorraine Alban are always among the last to bottle, so these are the current releases. The last few years have not been easy here. Vintage 2010 was quite challenging. Poor weather in spring and summer, especially during flowering, created widespread shatter and punishingly low yields, especially for Grenache. In 2010, Alban did not bottle their straight Grenache at all. In 2011, Alban saw the coldest vintage on record. I did not have a chance to taste the 2012 or 2013 reds from barrel, but they should mark a return to a greater sense of normalcy. As always, the Alban wines are built on textural depth, although the style has evolved quite a bit since I started tasting them 20 years ago. Today's Alban wines are as rich and hedonistic as they have always been, but they are also not quite as heavy or overpowering as they used to be. Most importantly though, Alban has succeeded in creating a deeply personal, unique signature that is unlike anything else.

The exposition and limestone-rich soils of John Alban's vineyards ensure healthy acidity levels in the grapes regardless of vintage in this mostly hot region, he told me this fall.He pointed out that the east-west valley in which his estate sits pulls cold air and fog in from the Pacific Ocean, and that much of the soil on which his vines are planted is heavily chalky old seabed, not unlike that on the west side of Paso Robles."That's why you can get that interplay of ripeness from the constant sun and daytime temperatures with a strong undercarriage of acidity and structure," he added.And Alban's wines have never been shy about their ripeness and power, a fact that he shrugged off by pointing out that "to try to hold them back is a form of intervention."He added that he doesn't have to worry nearly as much as most growers about acid loss leading up to the harvest, "so the harvest can happen when the fruit is truly ripe but still fresh."